eat their own eggs

I have been going out to get my eggs recently and notice that 1 or 2 are usually broken. I only have 5 chickens and they are fed very well. Is there any way to stop them from doing this?

Hello there and welcome to BYC!

I had this problem last year as I have an old hen that has a hard time putting a shell on her yolks. And of course the hens learned to all line up waiting for this hen to finish laying so they could all go eat this treat! Any egg in the way was also broken into!

What helped my situation was a few things...You have to keep fake eggs in the boxes at all times. Once they learn that eggs can be broken into, they will pick at every egg. So if you collect your eggs as quickly as possible and leave these fake eggs in there, after playing with these fake eggs, they learn that eggs are impenetrable. Don't use golf balls either. Hens are smart, so get some ceramic eggs for nest boxes on line. They are pretty cheep to purchase.

Another thing I did was hang curtains over the nest boxes. Get material that is fairly thick and staple or nail them over the front of the boxes so that they come together in the middle. At first you will need to pull up one side a bit so they learn how to get in. You can also hang a piece of old material, even a towel will do and cut a slit up the middle. Even a couple of slices so that you can pull them away until the birds learn how to get in. Eventually they will just peek their heads in and go through at the middle.

But what this does is it keeps the boxes dark. Hens don't mess with their eggs in the dark. It stops other birds from cruising for eggs from the outside as they can't see the eggs and the boxes are dark.

After I did all these things, I have never had a case of egg eating again. AND this bird will occasionally still lay a yolk in there. She just gets up and leaves it and nobody egg eats anymore!

Good luck and I hope this works!

Oh, and make sure they have plenty of access to oyster shell and they are not being fed too many treats. Without enough calcium in their diets, they will lay thinner shells. You want these shells to be super hard.

welcome to BYC !!